The Long Way Round

My middle son has been wrestling through moving out of babyhood. He turned 3 last month, and is sometimes sweet and angelic, and other times incredibly short-tempered. I am usually glad he is still nursing, but as he gets older I’m finding I enjoy it less, which makes me sad but also relieved he doesn’t want to nurse all that much anymore. It’s bittersweet.

Then, of course, we have a few nights where he wakes more frequently than usual, and needs to nurse back to sleep.

When this happens, I clearly have choices. I can wake my husband and ask him to cuddle the boy back to sleep. I can try to cuddle him back to sleep myself. I can ignore him (yeah, right!). I can suck it up and nurse him, whether I want to or not. I usually choose nursing, because although sometimes it becomes uncomfortable and I have a hard time going back to sleep, especially when the baby needs to nurse back to sleep at the same time, I am fundamentally lazy and don’t have the mental energy at 3am to try and talk a sad little boy into going to sleep without nursing. What would be the point anyway? A need that is met goes away. A screaming child disrupts the whole family’s sleep. I sometimes ask my son to try to just go back to sleep, and he sometimes does, but I see no real benefit to not letting him nurse when he really needs to.

So a few nights ago I found myself nursing both little ones, uncomfortable and unable to go back to sleep. When this happens I usually distract myself with the TV until I feel sleepy again. I put on “Long Way Round,” a surprisingly enjoyable series documenting a trip made by Ewan MacGregor and Charley Boorman, on motorcycles, more or less around the world – “the long way” – from London, across Europe, through the Czech Republic, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, flying across the Pacific to Alaska, then south through Canada and the United States until finishing up in New York. Whew! Ewan and Charley are likeable and jovial as they sign autographs, chat with the locals and help each other and their cameraman wrestle their motorcycles through rivers and muck. They visit UNICEF centers in the various large cities they pass through and spend time with the children.

The night I couldn’t sleep, I watched the episode where Ewan and Charley were making their slow, arduous way through Mongolia. There were very few paved roads, and after a very frustrating day of extremely slow progress through difficult terrain, they were considering moving north into Russia in order to travel on paved roads. After one of their support vehicles flipped over, Ewan had a long chat with one of the producers – should they take the easier roads? To my delight Ewan said something incredibly wise. “Maybe the point is not to take an easy road. Maybe the point is just that we’re doing this, and this is where we are right now.” I hadn’t thought anything could cheer me up that night – but I found myself smiling ear to ear.

And ironically, as frustrated as I had felt earlier, I was taking the easy road…even though it temporarily felt more difficult. Sure enough, later in the episode Ewan and Charley made their way out of the worst of the bad roads. They traveled through some incredibly beautiful regions of Mongolia that they would have missed if they had sought an easier route. They ended up being proud of themselves for making it through something difficult and enjoying the ride after all.

It seems a little silly to be making something profound out of a TV show – but I do think we come upon things at a certain time for a reason. Meaningful experiences are everywhere, if we are open to them.

Thanks, Ewan and Charley.